Tadcaster well-beaten by five-star Celtic

Rhys Howell

Tadcaster Albion made a disappointing start to 2017 as they suffered a 5-1 defeat on the road at Farsley Celtic in Evo-Stik Division One North.

Billy Miller’s men could have led early on as Tom Corner hit the woodwork and the Brewers also saw two efforts cleared off the home goalline.

It was however Farsley who went in front in the 40th minute when Brewers goalkeeper Gary Stevens’ blunder gifted Richard Marshall the opening goal.

Tadcaster thought that they had levelled the scores on the stroke of half-time when they had the ball in the back of the Celtic net, but the effort was ruled out as Tom Allan was adjudged to have fouled gloveman Graeme McKibbin.

James Walshaw doubled Farsley’s lead with 69 minutes on the clock, but Allan reduced the arrears three minutes later when he took advantage of a mix-up in the home defence and tapped-in.

Albion pushed numbers forward in search of a leveller but Marshall’s second of the game made the points safe for the hosts with nine minutes remaining.

Walshaw then rounded off a fine individual performance by completing his hat-trick with two well-taken goals in the closing stages.

Reflecting on the defeat, boss Miller said: “We’ve come up against a very good Farsley side today and for long periods of the game we held our own.

“We should have been 3-0 up after nine minutes, Tom Corner hit the bar and we had two cleared off the line and a very, very clear claim for a penalty.

“We got back in the game [at 2-1] and thought we had a chance and went chasing the game with three up top and that gave them a little bit of extra space.

“I think that over the course of the 90 minutes Farsley showed why they are going to be one of the teams who are there or there abouts at the end of the season.

“They are one of the fancied teams to win this league, but I’ve told the players after the game that we can’t keep saying that we nearly won, we need to pick ourselves up and work out where the solutions to our problems are.”